Even the Anarchist must come to a realization of the fact that liberty is not an absolute, but a relative and limited, right. Kropotkin, for example, realizes that, even under Anarchism, any individual who did not live up to his obligations, or who persisted in conducting himself in a manner obnoxious or injurious to the community, would have to be expelled.[183] This is very like Spencer's practical abandonment of the doctrine of _laissez faire_ individualism. Says he: "Many facts have shown us that while the individual man has acquired liberty as a citizen and greater religious liberty, he has also acquired greater liberty in respect of his occupations; and here we see that he has simultaneously acquired greater liberty of combination for industrial purposes. Indeed, in conformity with the universal law of rhythm, _there has been a change from excess of restriction to deficiency of restriction_. As is implied by legislation now pending, the facilities for forming companies and raising compound capitals have been too great."[184] Here is a very definite confession of the insufficiency of natural law, the failure of the _laissez faire_ theory, and a virtual appeal for restrictive and coercive legislation.
This is inevitable. The dual forces which serve as the motives of individual and collective action, spring, unquestionably, from the fact that individuals are at once alike and unlike, equal and unequal. Alike in our needs of certain fundamental necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter, coöperation for producing these necessities, for protection from foes, human and other, we are unlike in tastes, appetites, temperaments, character, will, and so on, till our diversity becomes as great and as general as our likeness. Now, the problem is to insure equal opportunities of full development to all these diversely constituted and endowed individuals, and, at the same time, to maintain the principle of equal obligations to society on the part of every individual. This is the problem of social justice: to insure to each the same social opportunities, to secure from each a recognition of the same obligations toward all. The basic principle of the Socialist state must be justice; no privileges or favors can be extended to individuals or groups of individuals.